What I’m Watching: Tyrant

Tyrant: Season 1, Episode 9 “Gaslight” (C)

Essentially, all that’s happening here is that Jamal is being made to look like a fool and playing exactly into the untruths that Bassam and John are feeding him. Its over-the-top nature was best evidenced by Tariq’s immediate response of “Don’t believe them, I’m being set up” after Jamal had the plane shot down and then had Tariq taken into custody. Bassam definitely didn’t take Leila into account, and she’s at her fiercest when she’s actually on her husband’s side and trying to make sure that he asserts himself so that others don’t take advantage of him. That’s exactly what Bassam is trying to do, and there’s no way that this transition goes smoothly. Molly is doing her very best to blow the whole thing, acting miserable during dinner and feigning American dislike for fancy food, and then snapping at her sister and her children to ensure that they get out of Abuddin as quickly as possible. Hearing her yell at John and Lea for allowing Bassam to go ahead with his plan demonstrated just how much she’s not happy with it, and she’s doing an excellent job of raising red flags and tipping others off to the fact that something’s going on. This show has yet to renewed for a second season – fellow FX freshman “The Strain” was a few days ago – but either way I’m still curious to see how the finale will set up what would surely be a very different and likely much darker second season.

What I’m Watching: Alphas

Alphas: Season 2, Episode 5 “Gaslight” (B+)

It’s practically a requirement that shows dealing with the slightly supernatural have at least one haunted house episode. I’m pleased to report that this hour was extremely well-constructed, with each member of the team being weighed down by their own projections of dead people or imagined living people. The most compelling, by far, was a resurrected Anna, talking to Gary and making him genuinely happy as he analyzed her existence and concluded how he was seeing her. I’m intrigued to see what Gary will do to carry on her memory, and glad to see him occupying his mind with a good cause. It’s also good that Cameron used his hallucinations to go see his son, whereas Bill battling himself doesn’t seem to have set him straight as far as his frequent fight club attendance is concerned. As always, Dr. Rosen was cool and collected during the entire experience, preparing to wake Jason up while warning his team members that they’re going to be seeing things that aren’t real. He’s also found a productive job for Nina, having her use her ability for the purposes of ascertaining rather than planting information, sort of a reverse-inception-type trick, which appears to have an effect on her as the memory-procurer as well. It’s doing impressive things for Kat too, though the return of previously hidden memories may not prove to be the best thing depending on how they manifest themselves and how they may affect Kat’s ability to create new memories in the process.